


I Saw Bartine Killing Santa Claus

by HolisticPanda



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolisticPanda/pseuds/HolisticPanda
Summary: “I can’t believe you killed Santa Claus.”She shrugs nonchalantly, wiping her bloody hands on her pants. “He had it comin’.”





	

“Too many people,” Bart grumbles, pushing her way through the crowd of last minute shoppers.

Ken wholeheartedly agrees, though probably not for the same reason. It’s more because the last time they’d visited a mall she’d shot it up and had gotten stabbed in the leg, and not knowing what she was here for makes him more than a little anxious. “ _You’re_ the one who wanted to come to the mall on Christmas Eve.” Ken sighs when she just grunts and shrugs her shoulders. He’d learned over the past few months that it was basically her way of saying ‘shut the fuck up.’ “Where are we going, anyway?”

Bart shrugs again. “I dunno.” She suddenly stops in the middle of the walkway, forcing him to quickly step to the side lest he run into the back of her. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing at something off to her left. She doesn't wait for his answer, instead roughly shoving her way past a group of children to get to a window display.

He rolls his eyes but follows her, glancing over her head to see what exactly had caught her attention. “That’s a Christmas tree. You can’t tell me you haven’t seen a Christmas tree before.” He leans forward to look at her and raises his eyebrows at her blank expression. ”You’ve never seen a Christmas tree before.”

Almost indignantly, she pouts. “I seen one before, I just didn’t know what it was.”

“So you’ve never gotten a Christmas present?”

Her eyes widen, almost comically, and she grabs the sleeve of his leather jacket. “You get _presents_ on _Christmas?_ ”

Ken feels his chest constrict at the look of wonder on her face. Of course she’d never gotten a Christmas present. She’d probably spent her childhood in some secret government facility and the time after that wandering the world completely on her own. Not for the first time he wished he’d met her sooner, even if that meant he only eased her loneliness by a single day.

“Yeah, Bart.” Her face lights up at this new piece of information, causing a rough idea to spark in his mind. “Let’s split up and meet back here in an hour. We can cover more ground and find what you’re looking for faster.”

She seems to consider it for a few seconds, squinting at him suspiciously, but then nods. “Good idea, Ken.” She brushes past him to continue exploring and he waits a few seconds for her to disappear into the crowd before he rushes over to the mall’s kiosk. There are three floors full of all kinds of shops, and he reads over all of them before he realizes a fatal flaw in his plan; He has absolutely no idea what she’d like.

In pretty much every single way she isn’t like a typical woman. She doesn’t care about clothing, makeup, shoes, jewelry, or well...anything besides killing people. How do you shop for someone who doesn’t want anything?

At a loss for ideas he wanders the floors of the mall aimlessly, hoping for something interesting to jump out at him. Once or twice he sees something that he thinks might make her happy, but ultimately none of it feels good enough. He’s about to give up and just buy her a scarf or something but then he spots a Build a Bear workshop and is immediately struck by inspiration as he remembers another thing that she cares about.

A glance at his watch shows that he only has around fifteen minutes before he has to meet back up with Bart, so he quickly heads into the bright, colorful store. He gets some basic instructions from one of the overworked clerks and gets to work putting together his gift.

He picks out a soft, fluffy, black teddy bear with a beige snout for the base, and then heads over to the sound effect area where he’s able to either choose from a set of predetermined sounds or set up his own. He thinks about it for a minute or two, and grinning, records a message to be placed inside the bear that she can hear anytime she wants.

From there he flags down the clerk who looks the least busy to stuff it, making it a little soft so that it’s perfectly squeezable, and finally picks out an outfit similar to the one he’d been wearing when they first met--a polo shirt over a long sleeved shirt and jeans. With his bear complete, he heads up to the front to pay for his purchase.

A smiling, though exhausted looking young woman greets him, ringing up the purchase and telling him the price. “Buying this for your kid?” she asks in an attempt to make conversation.

“A friend, actually,” he says, reaching into his pocket to produce a wad of crumpled bills taken from the last few people Bart had killed.

A knowing look appears on her face at his response. “Does that mean you’d like it gift wrapped? Only costs an extra two dollars.”

“You can do that? Definitely!”

She nods and does as he asks, letting him pick out a light blue wrapping paper with little brown bears on it and a bright red bow. Right as she’s finishing up wrapping the bear he hears a loud, bloodcurdling scream from the direction he’d come from.

The first thought that pops into his mind is that it has something to do with Bart; the second is that she’s probably in the process of killing someone, in public, _again_. With a quick thanks to the cashier he grabs the bear off of the counter and rushes out the door, tucking it under his arm as he sprints towards where he thinks the sound came from. Unsurprisingly the closer he gets to the bottom floor of the mall the more people he sees yelling and running in the opposite direction.

He skids to a stop in the atrium of the mall and sees Bart holding a giant, blood splattered candy cane over her head, repeatedly smashing it down onto whatever’s in front of her. It’s not until he gets within six feet of her that, with open horror, he recognizes the distinctive red suit and now red beard lying on the ground.

“Bart, why are you killing Santa Claus?!” he yells, pushing through the fleeing crowd to get to her.

Surprised, Bart pauses mid swing and turns to look at him. “You know this guy?”

“Bart,” he groans, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “That’s Santa Claus. The one who leaves you presents under your tree.”

She looks down at the now _very_ dead man blankly. “Oh.” Unsurprisingly she doesn’t seem all that upset about it, shrugging and dropping the hard plastic candy cane onto his corpse to walk towards him.

When she gets close enough, he uses his free hand to grab her by the forearm and drag her away from the rent a cops currently converging on their location. Luckily the mall is crowded and panicking, making it extremely easy for them to blend in and then slip out of one of the emergency stairways. They take the steps down two at a time until they’re out in the cool winter air, and it’s only then that he turns to address her.

“I can’t believe you killed Santa Claus.”

She shrugs nonchalantly, wiping her bloody hands on her pants. “He had it comin’.” Her eyes fall to the light blue box beneath his arm, and she points curiously at it. “What’s that?”

It’s only then that he remembers the bear. “It’s a Christmas present.”

Bart blinks. “For who?” Ken gives her a wry look, and she points uncertainly at herself. “For _me?_ ” Showing uncharacteristic gentleness, she takes the box from his outstretched hands. “Can I open it?”

“Well, you’re not supposed to open it until tomorrow.” her face falls, and he quickly backtracks. “But I guess it’s close enough.”

Grinning widely, she rips the paper off of the box. She lets the trash fall to the ground and holds up the bear with wonder. She just stares at it silently for a solid minute, and the longer she stands there without speaking the more worried he becomes.

“I thought you could keep it in case we’re ever split up for some reason, sort of like a surrogate Ken,” he quickly explains. She continues to look at it blankly, and it’s then that he realizes he might have made a huge mistake. That she wasn’t nearly as sentimental as he’d thought, and wouldn’t like it at all. Desperate to sell her on the gift, he motions towards the bear’s stomach. “It has a sound effect! Try hugging it.”

She does so and the sound of his voice comes from the bear, saying one simple statement:

_‘I’m not going anywhere.’_

Her eyes immediately tear up, and she looks at him with something akin to astonishment. Her silence and tears alarm him--he'd only seen her cry when in extreme pain--and he worries that maybe he's made a huge mistake. “You said you liked it when I spoke words to you, so I thought maybe this would make you happy whenever I’m not around. If you don’t like it I can--” He’s cut off by her throwing her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He returns it awkwardly, relieved that she isn’t disappointed by her gift.

“Thanks, Ken.”

“Merry Christmas,” he murmurs into her greasy, sweaty hair, the smell of it pervading his senses along with the iron smell of fresh blood.

“Merry Christmas.”

They stand there in the dimly lit parking lot, holding each other, until the faraway sound of sirens reach his ears. He was growing increasingly used to the sound--it didn’t scare him nearly as much as it used to. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggests, motioning for him to follow her to where their car was parked. They manage to avoid the police somehow, probably due to the universe looking out for Bart, and are on the road heading north because that was where she felt like going next.

While Ken drives Bart holds the teddy bear tightly to her chest, rubbing its soft fur thoughtfully. “I didn’t get you nothing for Christmas,” she frowns.

He spares her an amused glance and shakes his head. “You gave my life _purpose_ , Bart. That’s better than any other gift.”

Bart beams at him from the passenger seat and punches him in the shoulder, her way of hugging him whenever he was driving; they’d had to have a talk about car safety when she’d almost caused them to swerve into a tree.

She cocks her head at the bear, and as if deciding something, nods to herself. “I’m gonna call him Munchken.”

Ken groans inwardly. He’d always been somewhat short in stature growing up and as such it’d become a nickname from his childhood that he absolutely _hates_ , but watching her smile and tightly squeeze the bear to her chest, he can’t bring himself to dissuade her from using it. Besides, it wasn’t like she was referring to him personally. He pastes on a strained smile and turns his eyes back to the road.

_“Great.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Considering writing an art school AU with these two.


End file.
